


An Abundance of Marys

by StarMaamMke



Category: Red Dead Redemption
Genre: Coming of Age, Eventual Smut, F/M, Gen, Pining, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 00:53:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16821874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarMaamMke/pseuds/StarMaamMke
Summary: Mary-Beth Gaskill comes crashing into Arthur Morgan's life with a pocket full of gold. Mary-Beth/Arthur eventually, primarily a coming of age story.





	1. Prologue

Here is me toying with the Arthur Morgan/Mary-Beth Gaskill ship (which is virtually non-existent). Potential Prologue. Scouring the videos and wiki to make this as accurate as possible, as well as consuming the game at an unhealthy rate. If anyone wants to be my research expert/beta, give me a holler.

Based on Arthur’s recollections during the stage coach robbery with Mary-Beth and Sean. Slow-burn especially considering she is about fifteen in the prologue.

Let me know if it’s something I should keep going with, idk.

_________

1893

“Double goddamn,” Little Mary-Beth Gaskill cursed as she struggled to gain a sufficient pace in her skirts and idiotic high-heeled boots she had once (two days ago) been so proud of procuring because they made her feel so grown-up. The boots clashed with her dress, a babyish yellow affair complete with blue cornflowers and a frilly pinafore. At least the hem of her dress allowed her legs the freedom to kick up a bit of dust as she high-tailed up the thoroughfare, her pockets laden with stolen goods, a trio of shockingly fast, rotund swells gaining on her as they screamed for the law. 

Her eyes widened as she spied three men of varying ages, sitting on their horses and very much blocking her exit from the shitstain of a town she was temporarily calling home. At first she thought they were the law, but their rough clothes and dumbstruck expressions told her differently. She widened her eyes, bit hard on the inside of her right cheek and let loose some fat, crocodile tears as she hurried towards them.

“Help me, please!” She sobbed, as convincingly as she could. Mary-Beth never cried in earnest, and hadn’t for years, but she had a few tricks up her sleeve. The screaming made her bound chest ache something fierce, but it was effective. One of the men, a dark-haired youth who looked seemed just about her age, but slightly older, held out his hand and urged his horse forward. He scooped her up with ease, assisting her onto the back of his horse. She held tight to his slender waist and buried her head against his back.

“Goddamn it, John!” A rough voice scolded.

Mary-Beth felt her body lurch forward slightly as the boy urged his horse to take off. 

“They were gonna hurt the poor thing,” the boy named John finally replied after a good five minutes of breakneck riding. Mary-Beth lifted her head a heaved a sigh of relief when the horse trotted at a reasonable pace.

“You okay, little girl?” One of the other men inquired. He was older than John, and the angry man, his hair almost silver in the sunlight. 

“Yeah,” she replied throatily, forgetting that she was playing at someone five years younger today.

The angry man, a wide-shouldered beast with dark-blonde hair shot her an angrily look as he rode alongside John.

“She’s not a little girl at all, for all her short skirts and ribbons. Goddamn it, John. Goddamn it, Hosea.”

Mary-Beth shook her head. “No, I’m fifteen, actually… but I can pay you for helping me out of that bind back there.” She dug in her pinafore pocket and pulled out a few bills and a pocket watch. “Do you want some of my take, Mister… ?”

“Arthur. Shit, would you lookit that.” Arthur whistled smiled in that moment, as he admired Mary-Beth’s full pockets. “Jesus. Christ. And to think I was sore that we were missing out on the General Store job, boys.” 

Mary-Beth decided that Arthur looked awfully nice when he smiled. Handsome and golden, like the King of legend. Her heart fluttered a bit, and she had to turn away to hide her blush. 

“Well,” Hosea remarked before clearing his throat. “And who are you?”

“Mary-Beth,” she replied proudly before wrinkling her nose at Arthur’s quick and sharp intake of breath.

“Stupid name,” Arthur grunted. “Why couldn’t you be ‘Leslie’ or something?”

Mary-Beth bristled at the insult and stuck her chin up high, her thin shoulders squaring. “Because it’s my name and I came by it honestly.”

“Don’t mind, Arthur. He’s an acquired taste,” John commented over his shoulder. “You got a place to stay?”

Mary-Beth shook her head. “No. Everything I own is in that rinky-dink town, and I ducked out on paying the innkeeper. I’m alone.”

Hosea shot her a sympathetic look. “Poor girl. We have a place for you, if you want it and are willing to work.”

“We gotta ask–”

“I think Dutch will be more than impressed by her references, Arthur.”

Mary-Beth shot an anxious look towards Arthur. His eyes were on the horizon, his face a stony, impassive mask. 

“Yeah, I guess. Welcome home, Leslie.”

“My name is–”

“I’m just teasin’ you. Keep your honest name if you want it.”


	2. I See Nothing But the Candle in the Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fast forward to 1894: A Sweet Sixteen, and some light scrying. Scry method and subsequent scene shamelessly stolen from ‘Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812′.

1894

“Hold still, you.”

“Ouch, Karen!”

Mary-Beth gasped in pain as Karen Jones pulled a comb through a thick patch of honey-colored snarls while Tilly Jackson looked on with a bemused expression.

“You want to look like a grown-up for your party, don’t ya, Sunshine Baby?”

Mary-Beth frowned at Tilly’s inquiry and use of pet name. “’Course I do, I just didn’t think being a grown-up had to hurt so bad.”

Tilly and Karen exchanged a strange, knowing look that did nothing but puzzle and frustrate the girl. Once again, she felt like a clueless child while hanging out with the pair of them. They were both older, nineteen and twenty-two, respectively, with a whole world of experience between the pair of them. They had both been in the gang longer than her, and both had pasts more exciting and colorful than her poor, little orphaned self. 

“Oh, it hurts alright, honey, but Old Grimshaw will be sure to keep you under lock and key so you never have to learn how much,” Karen replied, sagely. 

“Sixteen going on ten,” Tilly added with a smirk. “She’s gonna blow her lid when she sees your hair up and your skirts down, even if it is just for an evening.”

Mary-Beth shrugged, suppressing the bitter pout that threatened to show across her pale, freckled features. “Tilly, you’re so lucky she doesn’t care anymore if you put your hair up. You get to do the fun jobs now…” It was true. When Mary-Beth joined the van der Linde gang, she and Tilly had made fast friends because they were both used as decoys for the same sort of scheme; little lost girls in danger. Now Tilly had graduated to lost and endangered honeypot, and she and Karen were thick as thieves. It was lonely.

“Please, she still don’t let me fraternize with anyone outside of here. Some boy in town gave me cow eyes, and she told me she’d have him boiled if I let him come ‘round here or I wasn’t home before dark, and I was practically married once!”

“She doesn’t care a fig about what I do,” Karen exclaimed proudly before attacking Mary-Beth’s hair with a fine set of combs. “Ooo, ain’t you pretty, even if you haven’t been using lemons on them freckles.”

“Lemons are expensive.”

Tilly kissed her cheek. “Sensible, just like her Aunt Tilly.”

Mary-Beth rolled her eyes and snorted. She had loved Tilly and Karen’s mothering at first, it had been a balm that made her miss her own mother a little less… now it just felt condescending. 

“How’s the corset feel?”

Mary-Beth squirmed uncomfortable, reminded of how tight the stays were.

“Not any worse than the bindings I usually use,” she lied. It was so much worse. She felt like her ribs were going to crack for sure.

“Except they do the exact opposite of your bindings. There’s no denying you’ve got a woman’s shape now, Mary-Beth.” Karen tried to deliver a light slap to the cleavage that peeked through the low-cut blouse Mary-Beth was wearing, but the younger girl ducked it.

“Maybe someone will finally notice,” Tilly teased, before she and Karen to burst out in conspiratorial laughter. Mary-Beth felt a blush creep up her neck and settle into her cheeks.

“Stop teasin’ me.”

“Oh honey, we all saw who you were looking at the other night when Molly was readin’ her godawful poetry,” Karen cooed. “Oh, Arthur…”

“What did I do now?”

The three women gave a start before turning to the entrance of the shabby little parlor. Arthur Morgan stood, large and imposing, leaning against the archway with a confused smile on his handsome features. Mary-Beth had to look away.

“Nothin’. It was a sentiment of pre-emptive disappointment,” Tilly replied, icily. 

“Look at how pretty our Mary-Beth is!” Karen announced, pushing the girl from the chaise and onto her feet. Mary-Beth kept her eyes on the floorboards, memorizing each stain and crack as she avoided making eye contact with Arthur, who gave a low whistle.

“You almost look grown-up, kid,” he commented. Mary-Beth could have died on the pointed, fetid end of that ‘almost’. 

“Thanks, Arthur.”

“‘Welcome. Happy birthday also.” She heard heavy footsteps approach, and she looked in time to see him looming in front of her, holding up a parcel wrapped haphazardly in brown paper. She reached out two slightly shaky hands took the offering.

“Oh, Arthur. Come on now.”

“Just a little something.”

After a long moment, Mary-Beth realized that he was waiting for her to open the package. With a sigh, she undid the twine and let it fall to the floor. She was half-expecting a doll for all the ribbing surrounding her ‘sweet sixteen’.

“Oh… Arthur.” 

It was a necklace. An intricate gold-appearing chain with not one, but three diamond shaped turquoise stones. In all her years, Mary-Beth had never seen the like.

“Figured you needed a little something, now you’re a fine, learned lady.” Mary-Beth snorted. Learned, indeed. For all the pains Hosea took exposing her to classic literature, she was drawn to the penny dreadful and soppy romance. Still…

“Th-thank you.” Her eyes dropped again, wanting to embrace him, but knowing full well he was embarrassed enough already. 

“Anyway, happy birthday again.” 

With that he was gone.

“Oh honey, are you gonna swoon?” Tilly asked when all Mary-Beth could do was stare down at the gift and then to the empty space where Arthur once stood.

“Just like in one of her silly stories!” Karen joked. “C’mere now, let’s put it on you.”

After the jewelry was fastened, Karen led Mary-Beth to a cracked, full-length mirror on the far wall. 

“Oh, look at you, Sunshine.”

Mary-Beth could scarcely believe the tall, shapely thing that was her reflection. She had been so used to wearing her riotous hair down her back that she didn’t realize that she had a long neck. Her breasts, she had been aware of since she was twelve, when she decided to hide them and run away from the orphanage and Mr. Beechum’s roving eye, but she had never seen them look so… 

“Oh.”

“Well, stop gawking, and let’s get your future told.”

Karen and Tilly led her to a small room off of the parlor. It was furnished with a banged up table and three chairs. On the table was an gilted oval mirror, and in front of the mirror was a candle. Karen ushered Mary-Beth to the chair directly in front of the mirror and struck a match. Once the candle was lit, Tilly closed the door behind her, engulfing the room in complete darkness, save for the dim light of the candle.

“This is foolishness, Karen.”

“Shut up, Tilly. Now, Mary-Beth, look deep into the mirror and try not to blink. Focus your gaze as far back into the mirror as you can… what do you see?”

“My face.”

“Look harder. You’ll either see a coffin or a man… everyone sees a man, though. Whoever you see is the man you’re going to marry.”

“Who told you that nonsense, that old bird from Lincoln?”

“She was a witch, Tilly, now hush. Mary-Beth needs to concentrate.”

Mary-Beth furrowed her brow and sighed before letting her gaze focus and then relax. For a while there was nothing but light breathing, and a row of candlelight stretching back, and back, and back… and then sure enough, the shape of a man.

“He’s lying down,” she whispered, her heart filled with dread and confusion and she strained to make out his features. She nearly gave a shriek when a gush of air flew in front of her, extinguishing the flame. The door behind her opened, and light flooded in.

“Tilly, what kind of damn fool…”

“You were scaring her, and I’m not going to indulge in the deviltry a minute longer!”

Mary-Beth sighed and stared absent-minded at her reflection as her friends bickered behind her.


End file.
